Greetings friends!  This here is Herb…from down to Rabbit Hash. First off, I’m here to tell ya….ain’t it nice to be puttin’ 2010 behind ya?? Lordy, lordy, I am so glad to have been a squatter down here to Rabbit Hash this past year, ‘cause I’d a damn sure lost my place if I’d a had a mortgage! Why, they’d a been foreclosin’ on me afore deer season was over, iffin’ I was to be owing to the bank fer my digs. The onliest bank I’ll ever trust is the Ohio River bank…..and that’s only if it ain’t a rainin’ a bunch. Learnt how fickle she can be way back in ’37 when I was still jest a tadpole.
Personally, I’m a looking forward to 2011, thanks to them China people. Naw, not cause they keep lending our govmint all that money so’s we don’t go belly-up. It’s a cause this here 2011 is their “Year of the Rabbit!” Now jest figger on that fer a minit, would ya? Here, in the great U.S. of A, we call our years names like “the year of financial recovery,” or “the year of partisan politics,” or “the year of Sarah Palin” and stuff like that. And here them china folks names their year fer the Rabbit! And what that means is the year of the rabbit will be calmer and more peaceful and less stressful and jest plum furry and fuzzy. Ain’t gonna be stressful or volatile or threatening or worrisome like it was last year. (Maybe it’s cause they realize that our country owes them all that money that even our great-great grandchildren ain’t even gonna be able to pay back. Now that surely must be comforting and fuzzy-feeling.)
Anyways, the way I sees it is this. It’s the ‘year of the rabbit’ in that there Chinaman calendar, and we all is here livin’ in Rabbit Hash…..so, let’s put 2 and 2 together, and we call them folks over there an’ get to be their sister city, and then sell them Rabbit Hash trinkets. That way, we kin git some of our money back from them, and they can celebrate their year of the rabbit by wearin’ Rabbit Hash hats and hoodies, and put their keys on Rabbit Hash key chains, and keep their beers cold in Rabbit Hash snuggies.
Then I could hunt extra long this season to git them some extry rabbit meat so’s they kin start makin’ rabbit chow mein at their China Emporiums up there to mall Rode and we kin keep the rabbit feet and tan ‘em, so’s we kin sell them over there fer good luck charms. My head is jest swimmin’ to think of all the rabbit ware we kin send across that pond so they can have a wonderful ‘year of the rabbit.’
Now, I don’t know if you all out there kin remember the greatest TV show ever…..Bonanza…., er not? But, anyway, Little Joe and Hoss and Adam and Big Daddy Ben Cartwright, they all enjoyed that china food that Hop Sing cooked up fer them. Now you ain’t a gonna convince me that Hop Sing didn’t use rabbit meat in them special dishes he cooked up. See what I’m a gittin’ at? Yes sir, Rabbit Hash could make a killin’ this comin’ year.
I wonder if them people will ever have the ‘year of the carp?”